Your
Scale-up Growth Companion
Navigate your growth journey through intentional organisation design
As a startup founder, you are living in the heart of Darwinism. You either learn and adapt quickly... or you will be gone quickly. But what if your startup's success had less to do with product, market or even money... and more with aspects outside your natural fields of expertise?
Very often, "the soft stuff is the hard stuff."
"The faster you go, the further you must look ahead."
Racing wisdom
The statistics are sobering:
90%
of startups fail in the first 5 years
70%
fail due to struggles within their team
23%
of failed startups directly name team and cultural issues as main reasons for failure
Imagine if...
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People were happy working with you (and you were happy working with them)
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You saw less fluctuation among the people you want to keep
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There was clarity for everybody on what to do and which direction to follow
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You felt the burden was carried by many shoulders
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You felt and maybe even slept better
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Your company still existed in 5 years
Understanding the growth journey
Although every startup is unique, all follow predictable evolutionary phases. Between each growth phase lies a predictable crisis that must be navigated.
Our perspective is based on Larry E. Greiner's Growth Model.
Crisis 1: Leadership Crisis
As more people join who aren't close to the founders, providing direction and leadership becomes challenging. You need to evolve from founder to leader.
Crisis 2: Autonomy Crisis
Engaged team members become frustrated when unclear about their roles and decision-making authority. They want to step up and take responsibility, but the structures don't support this.
Crisis 3: Control Crisis
People start working in silos, coordination becomes difficult, and maintaining direction gets harder. You begin to lose control over what's happening in different parts of the organization.
Crisis 4: Bureaucracy Crisis
Templates and meetings multiply, agility decreases, and innovation slows down. You hear yourself asking: "How did we become so slow?"
Typically, as your company grows and complexity rises, you respond by adding more control—more managers, more coordination meetings, more reporting. Eventually, you might find yourself saying: "We've become an organizational iceberg. Passive, immovable, with most decisions frozen beneath the surface."
The Pendulum of Organizational Evolution
Organizations naturally swing between two extremes: constant change or paralyzing stability.
The winners are those who avoid getting stuck in these traps and avoid using old logics to answer new challenges.
Our approach:
Intentional Organisation Design
The "Sweet Zone" for organisational growth is the balanced middle path — maintaining enough structure for stability while preserving enough autonomy for exploration and innovation. It represents:
The right balance between strategic management and creative leadership
An environment with enough structure while maintaining autonomy to explore
A continuous system evolution within healthy boundaries of freedom and discipline
Evolving along your growth journey requires three key perspectives:
ME - How you need to adapt as a founder/leader
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Evolving your leadership style with each growth phase
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Developing new skills and mindsets appropriate to your company's stage
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Learning to let go of control while maintaining vision
WE - How your (leadership) team needs to evolve
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Building collaborative (leadership) capabilities
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Creating alignment around purpose and strategy
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Developing trust and effective communication patterns
ORG - How to adapt your organizational system
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Designing structures that support your current growth phase
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Creating processes that enable rather than constrain
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Fostering a culture that balances innovation and execution
How we support you as your
Growth Companion
Growth Health Assessment
Diagnosing the organisation’s state of evolution and (potential) crisis, using our pragmatic assessment tools.
Crisis Intervention
A set of tailored interventions for each growth crisis, turning potential setbacks into catalysts for positive change.
Anticipatory Adaptation
Facilitating the collective anticipation of emerging challenges and adapting the system ahead of crisis.
Learning Organisation
Enabling the organisation for intrinsic, constant evolution by implementing double-loop learning skills and mindset.
Leadership Evolution
offerings specifically designed to help leaders reflect on their existing management logics and adapt new ones for the next phase of growth.
Growth Health Assessment
Our proprietary assessment accurately pinpoints your organization's current growth phase and upcoming challenges.
Diagnosis Approach:
Preliminary Data Gathering & Understanding: Collection of essential business metrics and targeted interviews with founders/key leaders
Cross-Functional Deep Dive: Structured interviews or workshops with relevant stakeholders to explore perceptions of the company's growth journey
Collaborative Growth Mapping Workshop: A facilitated session bringing leadership and key representatives together to map the company's position and identify priorities
Health Indicators We Measure:
Organizational effectiveness
Role clarity and alignment
Decision-making empowerment
Vision alignment and inspiration
Leadership feedback and growth opportunities
Crisis
Interventions
Tailored interventions for each crisis to support you in quick and effective adaption to enter the next growth phase:
Leadership Crisis
Purpose-to-Action Alignment: Surfacing, articulating, and reconnecting with the purpose/vision to unite and mobilize the organization
Intentional Organisation Design: Identifying and adapting the (informal) structures as more people get involved and complexity rises
Leadership & Relational Skills Development: Coaching the leadership team to evolve their personal logics and principles
Crisis of Autonomy
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Delegation Mastery Program: Moving away from founders/management making all decisions to create more agility and growth
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Middle Management Empowerment: Reviewing and adapting decision-making processes and frameworks to enable middle management
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Leadership & Relational Skills Development: Working with the leadership team on trust, delegation, and communication skills
Crisis of Control
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Strategy Alignment Program: Creating a common understanding of where to go, addressing market opportunities, building upon company strengths
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Cross-function Collaboration Scaler: Nurturing collaboration along the value chain as distinctive teams/departments are installed
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Performance Management System: Implementing a common understanding and use of KPIs (e.g., OKRs) as navigation and early warning systems
Crisis of Red Tape
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Psychological Safety Training: Creating environments where new thinking and ideas can flourish with the freedom to fail
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Creative Leadership & Collaboration Program: Gaining skills and techniques to foster innovation and unleash team potential
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"Bureaucracy Buster" Challenges: Challenging existing structures and finding the right principles for distributing responsibilities
Crisis of Growth
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Innovation Catalyst Program: Enabling and encouraging people to bring new ideas forward
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Employee (Re)engagement Initiatives: Helping employees identify with the company rather than just functioning in their roles
Anticipatory
Adaptation
Intentional evolution of the organisational system requires looking at different dimensions.
Together, we will look at the following questions:
What are our principles in this area?
What do we believe in?
What are our practices in this area? What are we actually doing?
Are they serving us? Are our actions and results in line with our intentions and values?
This can lead you to recognise the divergence between your assumptions and beliefs with reality.
Why does this process or policy exist? Is what we say what we do? Have we ever considered this?
This approach triggers a discourse, and this discourse can bring about change.
From there we go into tailored
Adaptive Structure Design
What It Involves:
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Analysis of current organizational structure and its pain points
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Co-creation workshops to design adaptive organizational models
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Implementation of dynamic role definitions and fluid team structures
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Training on self-management and distributed decision-making principles
Benefits:
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Create an organization that can flex and adapt to changing needs without constant restructuring
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Improve information flow and decision-making speed
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Enhance employee engagement through increased autonomy and responsibility
Learning
Organisation
Moving beyond simple problem-solving to address root causes and systemic issues:
Single Loop vs. Double Loop Learning:
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Single Loop: Fixing problems within existing frameworks
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Double Loop: Questioning the frameworks themselves
Practical Applications for Startup Leaders:
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Product Development: Moving beyond fixing features to questioning core value propositions
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Team Management: Moving beyond performance issues to examining leadership style and culture
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Market Strategy: Moving beyond tactical adjustments to reconsidering market assumptions
What It Involves:
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Training on the principles and practices of double-loop learning
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Implementation of structured reflection processes at all levels
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Development of metrics and feedback mechanisms to track learning effectiveness
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Regular "assumption challenging" workshops to question core beliefs and strategies
Our additional Leadership Evolution Offering
We've created offerings specifically designed to help leaders reflect on their existing management logics and adapt new ones for the next phase of growth:
Leadership Mindset Evolution
This program helps leaders identify their current management paradigms, challenge them, and develop new ones. The combination of assessment, reflection, workshops, and coaching provides a structured approach to evolving leadership thinking.
Leadership Transition Retreats
These retreats provide dedicated time and space for deep reflection, away from day-to-day pressures. They allow leadership teams to step back, assess their current approach, and envision new ways of leading that align with the organization's future needs.
Systems Thinking Workshops
These workshops help leaders develop a more holistic view of their organization and its environment. It challenges linear thinking and promotes a more adaptive, interconnected approach to leadership.
Leadership Coaching
This personalized approach dives deep into a leader's core assumptions and mental models. By exploring personal history and challenging long-held beliefs, it facilitates profound shifts in leadership approach.
Reflective Leadership Circles
These ongoing (initially facilitated) peer groups provide a supportive environment for continuous reflection and adaptation. They allow leaders to learn from each other's experiences and collaboratively explore new leadership approaches.
Meet your Growth Companions
As independent consultants we form a well experienced team with complementary skills and a shared mission: to help young businesses mature healthy and wisely.
Work and Organisational Psychology &
Mental Health
Aurelia Hack
In my work as an organizational psychologist, I support and advise organizations across Europe in creating work environments that empower and support employees while simultaneously promoting mental health. I am also the co-founder of 'The Healthy Start-Up' - a mental health for founders initiative.
Leadership Coaching, Strategy Consulting & Organisational Development
Jörg Schäffken
Founder and owner of INCORPORE Management Consulting and ProModerare, with over two decades of practical change management experience. Additionally, he brings extensive expertise in coaching and organizational consulting, helping businesses and teams navigate complex challenges and achieve sustainable growth.
Creative Leadership, Coaching, Strategy Facilitation & Culture Design
Bastian Lindberg
I believe that real change and growth come from inside.
With over 15 years of experience in brand and business strategy, human-centred design, training & facilitation, creative leadership, customer experience, and culture change, I am passionate about co-creating bright futures for people and organisations.